Pete Doherty's film debut suffers critics' derision

Can’t hold a tune, can’t paint, can’t hide his stash from the police, can’t go out on the street without a hat, can’t make his chubby little babyface look like a gaunt tormented poet’s . . . The long list of Pete Doherty’s heroic failures got a little longer when the critics pretty unanimously agreed that he can’t act.

His film debut comes in Confession of a Child of the Century, which had its first press screening at the Cannes Film Festival. The world’s press were less than kind about Doherty’s performance as Octave, a debauched and indulgent romantic. Although the role does not sound like much of a stretch for Doherty, the reviews suggest he still found it beyond him.

Cine Vue described Doherty’s attempts at acting as those of "a sixth former who hasn't learnt his lines for drama class". The ex-Libertine, they suggested, "joins a long line of successful musicians and pop stars who have become truly awful actors".

The Hollywood Reporter focused on the film’s failures rather than the cast’s although they said of Doherty: "It's hard to recall an actor looking more uncomfortable on screen", adding, "it was perhaps too much to expect a first-timer to shoulder a demanding lead".

As Doherty frantically rummages through the press cuttings looking for anything remotely positive, he will skip past The Guardian talking about his "shambling amateurism", and Screen Daily identifying "a wooden performance".

With a film career seemingly nipped in the bud, Doherty can address his attention to his day job. Doherty plays T In The Park in Kinross on July 6-8.